


Can't Stop the Steam Train or something I don't know yet

by wisekrakens



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28872015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisekrakens/pseuds/wisekrakens
Summary: #AU where Zuko is captured and subsequently adopted by the southern water tribe soon after being banished#Iroh is nearly executed for war crimes but after showing his extreme regret for his actions and his reforming#he's sentenced to community service#the community service is to find the avatar and defeat the firelord#with their steamer ship#the south is able to fetch waterbending masters from the north#Aang awakens to a newly rebuilt Southern Water Tribe and awakening him is how Katara is recognized as a master#Iroh kneels in front of Aang and crying asks for the Avatar's forgiveness#Aang panics and runs and that's how they all end up at Kyoshi Islandinspired by a tumblr post and a whim
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Can't Stop the Steam Train or something I don't know yet

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Boiling Rock AU](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/745950) by younggayanddoingokay. 



> this was entirely on impulse but there will likely be more! at some point!

To Zuko's left burns the familiar heat of Zuko's uncle, still blazing like a fireplace, even unconscious. To Zuko's right burns the odd heat of the men whose health and well-being Zuko is now responsible for: a dozen men, half fire benders of undetermined skill, who'd chosen or been discarded into following their disgraced Prince into exile.

Like his uncle.

Who is unconscious beside him.

Zuko has to try.

"I want to speak to your leader!" he thunders.

The children of the Southern Water Tribe, sitting some distance away, titter. The Southern Water Tribe's lone warrior -- Zuko can't believe that, but why else would someone not much older than him be wearing warpaint? -- cuts across the noise. "I will have SILENCE!" he shouts, pointing his weapon straight at Zuko.

Zuko doesn't know what that weapon does. He'd studied mostly Earth Kingdom weaponry in the course of his military education, and then... well, and then he'd been too hypothermic to care. A fire bender can handle extreme cold, yes. If that fire bender is prepared.

None of them had known what a glacier sounds like when it cracks. They're all born and raised on volcanic islands, and they'd all been expected to serve in the Earth Kingdom. Why would they know what a calving glacier sounds like?

"I want to speak to your leader," Zuko repeats, now aiming to imitate his father's icy tone.

"HAH!" the warrior bleats, but someone has come up behind him.

"Sokka," the wizened old lady says, "I'm ready for him. Keep an eye on the rest?"

Sokka's voice softens. "Of course, Gran Gran," he says. She rests a hand on his shoulder briefly and suddenly Zuko's being forced up from his knees and into a nearby ice house, leaving his uncle and his men stretched out in a line behind them.

The inside of the house is surprisingly comfortable. There's a cheery fire bubbling off to the left, caged in by an otherwise incongruous iron grate, and Zuko's wet clothes absorb the heat immediately. In a minute, he might need to figure out how to shake off the furs they had so kindly draped over him. The wizened old woman the warrior Sokka had called Gran Gran seats herself quietly on a carved wooden stool over a fur rug, watching him as he takes in the room.

He watches back until a few seconds pass and Gran Gran, evidently their leader, tilts her head and laughs. "Prince Zuko," she says. "You are very far from your home."

"I have no home."

This declaration seems to sadden her. He can't see why she'd care; he's her enemy. The pair of hands still holding his forearms behind his back are proof enough of that.

"I know." She sighs, looks away. "We are remote, Prince Zuko, but we are not isolated. We learned of your father's cruelty not too long ago."

"You know nothing about my father."

"No, but I can guess." She returns to a posture of polite attention. "I see by your bandage that your eye has yet to heal. What if I were to tell you that I knew of a way to help it heal better than it would have? More quickly?"

"Why would I trust that?" Zuko challenges, but against his will, he feels a sliver of hope.

"I don't expect you to." She looks her age, now, which must be... eighty? Maybe? "Prince Zuko, I have not once failed a child who has needed me."

"I'm not a child!"

"You're right, I apologize." She puts up a hand, but it's -- conciliatory? "Let me rephrase. Recently, by necessity, and also by tradition, the Southern Water Tribe raises their next generation more communally than almost any other culture, save our records of the air nomads, if they are to be even half-believed."

Zuko doesn't know why hearing this invokes a faint bubble of feeling in his chest. It didn't used to.

"Not only does this help absorb the social and emotional shock of our losses--" Zuko does wince, but she pretends not to notice, "but it also helps prepare our people for parenthood and to foster a sense of community responsibility. It also tends to make us all very, very protective. Prince Zuko, I was not born into the Southern Water Tribe."

"I don't understand."

"I was not born into the Southern Water Tribe," she repeats, as though he hadn't interrupted, "but I took to it like, well, water." She smiles. "If you'll forgive the pun. Prince Zuko, I took to the Southern culture very well. And you have been hurt by someone who was responsible for healing you. If you'll allow me, I would like to be very protective."

Zuko's not sure why he's suddenly crying. He doesn't notice that his arms are free until he tries to wipe his eyes.

"And my men?" he tries to demand.

"I can promise that they will be tried, as well as they can be tried by a court that knows neither the charges nor the evidence. Our courts are slightly different from yours, however," she explains gently, soothing the sudden fear that takes over Zuko. "My people excel at the art of words and diplomacy, Prince Zuko. Ordinarily, there would be presentation of evidence, and then the accused would be allowed to explain themselves. But for charges so tangled as these, there will be only questions. I cannot say how the three judges will vote, only that I will be one of them."

...

"General Iroh. What are we going to do about you?"

**Author's Note:**

> tune in next time for possibly Iroh's war crime trial!
> 
> if anyone has suggestions for a title, I would welcome them. all I've got is a half-formed steam pun.


End file.
